The Way I Feel For You
by Bulmaveg-Otaku
Summary: Making it's ff .net debut, a contest fic I wrote for Adimra's site! Based on Oedipus Rex. Mirai Trunks' situation is somewhat different, giving it a slight A/U flavor. It's got action, sci-fi, angst, violence, and lemony goodness. Eventually. ON HIATUS
1. Prologue

A/N: This is a story some of you may have already read, if you're familiar with Adimra's site from WAY back in the day. I have done extensive editing and re-tooling, in order to make it more polished and (hopefully) better executed as a work of worth. It was written for a contest for her site themed on Mythology. I pulled my ideas from the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex. It's a loose representation for sure, but the darker themes are still present. Some content may be disturbing to readers, even though I have toned it back some from it's original posting. Consider yourselves warned.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction, meaning I'm just a fan. A devoted, perhaps obsessed, and more then likely twisted fan… but just a fan, none the less. You all know what I mean.

**The Way I Feel For You**

by Bulmaveg Otaku

**Prologue**

My Sweet Boy,

Oh, my son, I am so sorry that the wretched path of our lives have brought us to this place. I'd give anything for things to be different. In fact, I have given everything, working towards that very end. By the time you read this I should be gone. My life forfeit in order to give you this chance. This world is too cruel, too wasted and tragic. I think of all the good that was obliterated as if it were nothing, all the beautiful potential of so many lives snuffed out by the unfeeling monsters that have devastated our world and your future.

Every living thing has been destroyed, except for you and a few other survivors. I don't expect they will last much longer. You know of the androids and the effect their destructive reign has had on our planet. It's not enough that they burn our homes and raze our cities, they have to slowly poison us with radiation as well! I try to take some comfort in the fact that they will no longer have any one to play with, once all living beings are dead. I'm sure that it won't be long until even their superior bodies succumb to the toxic air. This world is dead; nothing remains to even be saved… except for you.

I have devoted my life to leaving you a saving legacy. While you have been confined to this safe vault to read your books and watch your holo-videos I have been creating my masterpiece, my magnum opus. The last twenty years of my life have been spent trying to find a way to right the terrible wrongs that have occurred to this world. I have, at last, succeeded, but I'm afraid that the completion of my work has come too late to be of any help to this world. It can, however, save you, and offer you a real life.

How I wish that I could have been there for you, with you like a real mother should be. I couldn't risk the radiation contaminating your safe place, and, as you very well know, I could never fit through the detox-hatch. This letter and my gift to you could. I only hope that, in another time, it is not too late for you to have a real life and be a normal boy. My last request is that you assure the safety of your new home by destroying the threat before it overwhelms that world as well. You know where. I have already made sure that you will be delivered to the correct when. Everything you need can be found in the capsule you are now holding in the palm of your hand. Now it is up to you. Just push the button and complete your task, and your life should be relatively easy.

In my last days I have spent much time remembering life when it was better, when the world was untainted. There are so many wonderful and exciting things for you to discover in the world I remember. I know you will be happier there, my only wish is that I could be there to show you everything...

Just try and forget about this nightmare.

My best wishes and love go with you.

Love,

Your Mother


	2. Chapter One: Mourning Breaks

**A/N**: Okay, so after rereading the entire story and being stuck with some serious writers remorse I've decided that the re-edit with be a lot more of a re-write then I previously intended. That said I probably won't have chapters out as quickly as I wanted but that does mean that for those of you that have read it before, it will definitely be worth another go. That said... On with Chapter One!

Disclaimer: Me no own DBZ.

**Chapter One: Mourning Breaks**

Two weeks had past since his death, but still, Bulma felt like her heart had been shattered and ripped out in pieces. The pain was still as fresh and new as it had been when she'd watched the light fade from his eyes. At the time, she had tried to be strong for her friends and for Goku's small son, but things had eventually caught up with her. After watching Piccolo run off with Gohan, after fetching Yamcha and Tien and Choutzu, and after watching them and Krillin take off to start their vigorous "special" training at Kami's look out. After she'd gotten home to get her dragon radar and that feeling of loneliness and hopelessness had found her.

Now, she lay in bed staring out the window. Her heart throbbed with a still steady ache and head was numb. Her eyes were finally dry, and her cheeks felt slightly gritty from the evaporated tracks of tears. She was tired of waiting for the pain to go away. It was very persistent.

She had thought she was stronger then this, but apparently the impending end of the world combined with the loss of her dear friend was more then she could deal with. In one corner of her mind there had been a constant buzzing apathy. Why get out of bed and go to work if everything that you were building was just going to be destroyed in a year anyway? That part of her subconscious was very whiny.

The part of her mind that remembered her friend and all that he had stood for was speaking up for the first time in weeks and answered, "Because life must go on. You still have that year, and you still have hope," she could almost hear Goku's voice in her head. All of her friends were training so hard to make sure that they all had a future and all she was doing was lying in bed.

She forced her arms and legs to move as she crawled out from under her comforter and sat up. She took a deep breath and was relieved when it was free of the shuddering sorrow she'd felt for so long now. She rose, testing her limbs. It appeared her body was with her all the way. She moved to the bathroom and splashed some cold water on her face, looking up through wet lashes at her paler-then-normal reflection. She was still in there somewhere. She watched a fire of determination kindle in her own eyes. It was time to fight.

"There are things that I can do to help. I have to make sure Goku's sacrifice was not in vain," she whispered, flinching as sorrow made a brief attempt to overwhelm her again as she thought of her friend's valiant sacrifice. Her heart constricted and seemed to almost stop beating.

"No more," she almost growled and forced the pain back again. She stood up taller and dried her face. Slowly, she dressed and made her way downstairs. She made her way outside where the wind danced playfully about her face and she breathed in the sweet smell of the world. For a moment she felt as though her soul were reawakening from a long slumber. He let her eyes drift closed as she soaked up the beauty of being alive. There was lots to do in the next year. Besides... Goku would be back. After he had finished his straining at King Kai's.

Thank Kami for the dragon balls…

************

The tall young man stood on the edge of the cliff and surveyed the valley around him. According to his calculations, the lab would be just under the ledge below him. He climbed over the edge and started making his way down. Swinging his legs over the lip of the cave, he dropped down with a satisfied grunt. Viola! A frown creased his normally handsome and innocent face. This is where it would all begin. The death of the world would be born behind these steel doors.

Trunks swung the pack off his back and opened it gently. Inside he found the things that had been prepared by his mother's hands. He took the small silver pistol and swung the pack back onto his shoulders. Taking a deep breath he raised the gun and pointed it at the doors. Pulling the trigger, he watched as the doors disintegrated in a manner of milliseconds. As he stepped through the now gapping hole he looked around quickly at the larger inner chamber. He could hear an alarm ringing loudly while red lights flashed down the end of a hallway to his left. To his right was another hallway with several doors leading off into another bunch of labs. Straight in front of him was another set of double steel doors. This had to be it, he figured. He raised his high intensity laser gun to make another entrance for himself when the doors opened and out stepped the man behind all the evil of his world.

Trunks stepped out from the wall where he held his defensive position and glared at the old man. "Dr. Gero, I cannot allow you to live. You have destroyed all that was dear to me, and now I will make sure that you never hurt anyone else ever again!" With these words he fired his weapon at the shocked Dr.'s chest. He never even knew what hit him. The gun dissipated his entire body before he could even open his mouth to protest.

Standing still for a few seconds, taking in the fact that he had changed everything for this time, Trunks breathed in sharp ragged breaths, the gun still held poised in it's firing position. He had taken a life. It was a lot to take in, but he didn't have the time just now. He wasn't finished yet, and there was no way he was going to leave the job half done. It only took a handful of seconds for him to regain his control. Then he went to work.

A half hour later he stepped back out into the sunshine and smiled. The nearly empty pack hung from one hand, while a small detonator hung from the other. It only took him a few minutes to scale the cliff and walk back from the edge. He continued to walk, his face up, enjoying the feel of the sun and the fresh air on his skin. After he figured he had walked a safe distance away he turned and, without hesitating, pushed the small red button. Almost instantly a large area in front of him exploded, shooting rocks and trees into the air. Metal and rocks rushed straight into the sky in a poor imitation of Old Faithful. The cloud of debris seemed to hang in the air for a split second before turning and plummeting back to the ground. Thousands of tons of earth and steal and Dr. Gero's entire lab were being displaced and scrambled like a few dozen eggs. Fire mixed in with the destruction as things began to settle.

Trunks smiled. "Mission completed, mother." He stood for a while just watching the countryside burn, knowing he had saved mankind.

*************

When the call came in to the fire department in North City to put out the inferno that was revenging the forest and hillsides to the south of the city limits, it was no shock to anyone. Everyone within a hundred mile radius had seen the explosion, including Bulma Briefs, who was currently tracking down her first Dragonball (Aside from the three that were already at Goku's house). She saw the cloud rise in the distance and heard a sound like thunder a few seconds later. 'What the…?' She turned her air car immediately towards the sight. 'I have to find out what happened.' She took off in the direction of the explosion, danger be damned.

As she neared ground zero she looked down and saw large red trucks on the edge of the flames trying to put out the fire with little success. Bulma flew in lower to survey the damage. "It looks like there was a huge explosion here, like someone had blown of the entire mountain top. There's no way that was an accident. Who would so such a thing?" Her thoughts were tumbling around insider her brain when out of the corner of her eye she caught a flash of motion. A burning tree had finally lost it's bout with gravity and was toppling towards her air car.

She let out an ear-piercing scream as she jerked the wheel, attempting to get out of the tall pine's fiery descent, but it was too late. The car buckled under the burning branches and Bulma could only watch as the ground rushed up at her at a dizzying speed. Seconds later she felt her aircraft impact with the earth, jarring her whole body and snapping her head forward to connect with the steering wheel. Smoke and head quickly filled the cockpit and began to overwhelm her panic-smeared senses.

"I'm too young to die..." she squeaked and began coughing. Her chest already burned from it's traumatic meeting with her seatbelt, and now Bulma felt as though tight hot bands were wrapped around her chest. She pressed the release and was relieved when the strap whizzed back out of sight.

"Help!" she called as loud as she could, forcing her eyes to focus through the haze of smoke. She spied the release for the cockpit door and reached for it. The handle was molten hot and she gasped as the pain shot into her hand. Pulling her injured limb to her chest she started looking for alternative escape roots, coughing and hacking the whole time. It was all she could to do crawl into the back seat and lie on the floor, trying to escape the toxic air.

She was surprised at how quickly the fumes did her in. Her vision started to blur and spot, her chest seemed to collapse in on itself and her hand burned. Where were all the firemen and rescue teams? Where were her friends when she needed them? She felt anger mix with her fear. Stupid men! They always have to go off and "train" without her. Always too busy to aid her when she really needed them. "Dammit!" she cursed as her strength gave out and she let her face hit the semi-soft flooring. "This is sooo not how I wanted to go..." Then darkness and smoke consumed her.

**************

The next thing she knew, she was lying on the hard ground. She blinked and sat up coughing and gasping for air. Bulma reached out and found someone to hold onto. As soon as she was somewhat coherent she looked up and found a pair of azure eyes creased with worry. They softened slightly as they beheld her conscious state.

"Are you alright? The voice was soft and kind, and genuinely concerned.

"I...Yeah, I guess so." She glanced to her left and saw the inferno that had once been her car. "I thought I was a gonner for sure..." she coughed a few more times, her good hand still on the young man's shoulder to support her. Her right hand was still curled into her chest.

"You almost were," the boy said with a wry smile. He frowned as he spotted the blistering flesh on her fingers and palm. "You burned your hand!" The stranger reached for her. "Let me see it." Before she could argue he gently pulled her wrist towards himself to inspect her burn. "It doesn't look too bad," he pulled a pack of his shoulder and reached into it, removing a small capsule. With a flick of the button he was holding a first aid kit. In a few more seconds he was spraying her fingers with a small aerosol. The pain vanished almost immediately and the redness in the skin started to recede. Soon there was only a small imprint of the handle on her palm where some of the worst blisters were still visible.

"That should do it. Just let me wrap it for you real quick, then we should get out of here. It looks like the fire is spreading this way." His voice was colored with concern and something else, something Bulma couldn't place.

"You must be a doctor..." her voice wavered. Her throat was dry and throbbing, as if she'd been swallowing hot coals for the last hour. He looked too young to be a doctor. Then again, that spray he used was unlike anything she'd ever seen before.

He looked at her a little confused. "A doctor? Um, no, not really." He blushed almost guiltily and looked down as he taped the end of her bandage in place.

"Some kind of med student then? Or a volunteer? You seem to know a lot about how to take care of the injured," she gestured at his first aid kit with her good hand.

"I just know a few things about first-aid. I read a lot." He said casually as he replaced the aerosol can and re-capsulated the kit. In the blink of an eye he had it stored in his pack and out of sight. "Can you stand?"

"Yeah, probably." She grimaced at the pain in her chest and throat, but the rest of her seemed relatively okay.

"We better go," He said as he stood and helped her rise. She went slowly testing all her muscles to make sure they would hold before leaning all her weight on them. Soon she was standing with her hand on the shoulder of her savior.

"Well, that wasn't too difficult." She looked around at the smoldering woods. "It could have been much worse..." She closed her eyes as she remembered the panic, her helplessness and her anger at her absent friends. Swallowing it all down she pushed it back and focused again. Now was not the time to have a breakdown. The fire was coming closer and with it the air around them was starting to grow thick.

"Quickly," the rescue worker, med student, whatever he was said and wrapped an arm around her waist. "This way!"

Bulma stumbled along as he half carried, half dragged her away from the danger. In a few minutes he slowed to a more manageable pace. She felt anger at herself for her weakness and her inability to help herself. She was a brilliant, beautiful, sexy woman. She hated feeling like such a damsel in distress

Before too long they came to a clearing where there was more room to breath and the danger of the fire was far enough away for the moment to risk a stop.

"Thanks," Bulma said as she pulled away from young man and leaned against a large boulder. "I can get it from here." She ran a hand over her forehead and cleaned away some of the sweat and ash that dirtied her face. Wiping her hand on her jeans she reached out to her rescuer and smiled. "I'm Bulma, by the way. Bulma Briefs."

He looked down at her hand with a worried expression on his face. "Um, hi, Bulma. I'm Trunks." When he didn't take her hand, but just looked at it with a confused look on his face. Bulma frowned thoughtfully. This Trunks guy was kind of a weird one.

"What? Haven't you read any books on hand shakes? Here, let me show you." She took his hand and shook it carefully. "There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" She tried to smile at him while he stared at their locked hands. He seemed to blush and impossible shade of red and then, hesitantly, pulled his hand away. "You aren't from around here, are you?" she asked as politely as she could.

"Uh, not really," Trunks said a bit sheepishly and rubbed his neck self-consciously.

"What are you doing out here in the woods? You aren't with the rescue guys, are you?" She eyed him suspiciously as he looked everywhere but at her.

"I was... I mean... I was just..." He looked as though he were in pain as he floundered.

Bulma's heart softened a little as she realized she was giving the third degree to the guy who'd most definitely saved her life a short while before. "It's okay. Sorry, I'm having kind of a bad day. I should be thanking you, not grilling you. As long as you aren't some mass murderer or crazed arsonist..." she let her sentence trail off, not quite a question but close enough.

"No! Of course not!" Trunks gasped and he looked genuinely horrified that she though him capable of such terrible thins. "I was just trying to help!"

"Okay then, good." Bulma sighed. He almost looked like a child with his eyes wide and his hands up. He didn't seem like the kind of person that ran around starting forest fires for no reason.

"Well, I need to get going, I have to get back to what I was doing, maybe wash up some." She touched to cut on her brow and winced at the pain, and the blood that stayed on her fingers. "Do you live around here? Do you have a way home?"

"I... just left home. I was thinking about moving to the city to start a new life." He was looking down at his toes through his long eyelashes and purple bangs. Bulma thought, in that moment, that he was really just a lost little kid. Her heart broke for him. He was a homeless, adorable, good Samaritan who had saved her life and read a lot of books.

"Well, what kind of things can you do? I mean... I guess you'll be looking for a job and my dad owns a pretty big company. We could probably get you on somewhere, help you find an apartment. It's the least I can do, see as how you saved my life." Bulma felt the sudden need to care for this boy. "So, um, what kind of things are you good at? What do you like to do?"

He considered it for a second. "I'm really good at fixing things and putting them together, and I enjoy biophysics, hyper-level thermodynamics, and metaphysics especially." He said seriously.

Bulma couldn't believe it. Most people hadn't ever even heard of metaphysics. "Seriously? That's some cutting edge stuff. Where'd you say you went to school?" This guy was probably pulling her leg. It was hard to imagine a genius like that was just out in the woods saving people.

"I'm self taught. Well, mostly, I mean, my mother did set up some of the computer programs that I used to learn some of the more difficult science and mathematics." There was pride, and just a hint of sadness in his voice, and genuine honesty on his face.

"Well, I'd say you definitely have a job then, if you want one, that is..." She almost stammered. She was suddenly unsure that he'd accept, but every doubt was wiped away when he smiled brightly and nodded his head. "Great!" Bulma reached into her bra and pulled out her emergency airship capsule. She'd learned a long time ago that dragonball hunting was hard on vehicles. As she tossed the expanding aircraft she marveled at her luck, her accident and injuries almost completely forgotten. "If you don't mind, I'd like to discuss you education and maybe some of your theories on transcendental fluctuation of biometric energy in relation to the law of Conservation of Matter while I... run a few errands. I've had this idea for a new invention, but I haven't been able to work out some of the equations. Is that okay? You can come with me," she relished the thought of having an intellectual equal to work with. If this guy was what he said he was... her mental mouth was practically watering. Plus, it'd be nice to have a nice, strong, strapping young man along for the ride.

"Wow, that sounds really good," Trunks gushed and looped his one small bag over his shoulder.

Bulma paused and frowned. "Is that all of your stuff?" She shuddered to think of hauling everything you owned in one tiny knapsack.

Trunks smiled awkwardly. "Yeah. I've got most of my books and things in capsules."

"A capsule man, eh? I knew you looked smart," she winked at him before climbing into the drivers seat. Trunks watched her, carefully, knowing that such means of transportation were plentiful in this time, but never having ridden in one himself. He copied her actions on the other side and climbed in.

"Hang on!" Bulma said and then laughed as Trunks literally gripped the arms of his seat. He was so odd. Nevertheless, Bulma, again, wondered at her luck and thanked Kami for his divine providence on her behalf. In the back of her mind she couldn't help but compare this to her first dragonball hunt. It seemed she was forever destined to pick up strays. Well if this one worked out half as well as the last one did, this was going to be easier then she'd expected.

************

Okay folks, this is the part where you let me know how I'm doing, good or bad, thoughts, queries, complaints, suggestions... You name it, I wanna hear it. And I'll be working on getting the next chapter up ASAP.


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